These UniServ directors are responsible for all political activities within their geographic area, including raising funds for the NEA's political action committee (cynically named the Fund for Children and Public Education), managing NEA's delegates to the Democratic convention, giving campaign support for NEA-endorsed candidates and coordinating the union's lobbying efforts. Yet despite the obvious political nature of these union operatives' work and the huge sums of money to support it, the NEA claims it doesn't spend a dime of the dues it collects on politics, or at least that's what it tells the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Both the NEA and the AFT claim they spend zero dollars on politics when they file annual returns with the IRS. Why? Because as tax-exempt organizations, they would owe taxes on that portion of their revenues that they spend on politics. Other non-profit groups report their political and lobbying expenses -- the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, for example, reported almost $20 million in such spending in 1996 -- but not the teacher unions. So, not only are the unions ripping off their own members, they are defrauding the government of millions of dollars in taxes.
What makes this all the more galling is that teacher unions want the rest of us to pay higher taxes. When California experienced a $35-billion budget shortfall in 2002, largely because of out-of-control spending by the Democrat-controlled legislature and then Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, the California Federation of Teachers proposed raising six separate taxes to close the gap and passing legislation that would make it easier to raise taxes in the future. Of course the teacher unions claim these higher taxes would benefit education, though more money has done little to improve education to date.
Funding on education has gone up exponentially in the last several decades -- we're now spending more than three times as much per pupil in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars than we did in 1960 -- but student test scores, as measured by the National Assessment of Education Progress, have shown almost no improvement over that same period.
Teacher unions deserve an "A" for their unswerving devotion to the Democratic Party, but they have failed miserably when it comes to improving education.